While many apps gather ‘digital dust’, others foster dependent helplessness, writes Martin Willis
John Harris’s critique of the internet revolution (Ignore the hype over big tech. Its products are mostly useless, 21 May) does not go far enough. While many apps gather “digital dust”, others foster dependent helplessness.
Last week in Berlin, a young Bavarian visitor asked me, a non-German speaking British pensioner, for help in navigating a short journey on the underground. He looked bemused when...

Facebook said Thursday it will not compensate users in the scandal over the misuse of their personal data by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. The company made the statement in a list of written replies to questions by European Union lawmakers. The answers were promised...

As regulations come into force on Friday, inboxes fill with messages hoping to persuade customers to stay subscribed
As the GDPR deadline approaches, businesses have been resorting to ever more desperate attempts to get users to open their emails.
Some have opted for humour. Restaurant chain Wahaca asked users if they could “taco bout your data and your emails”. Wagamama asked customers not to “say toodles to noodles”. Continue reading...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson talked international relations and rude poetry with a hoax caller who pretended to be the Armenian prime minister in a new gaffe by one of Britain's most prominent politicians.

Renewed call to drop Facebook’s under-13s chat app backed by 21,000-strong petition
More than 21,000 child health advocates are petitioning Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to “pull the plug” on the company’s Messenger Kids app aimed at under 13s, warning of the “addictive power of social media”.
In an open letter and petition led by two groups, the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC) and MomsRising, the campaigners urged Zuckerberg to use his “enormous reach and influence to...

China's biggest tech company says the industry needs to tackle users' privacy concerns and the risks posed by advancing technologies. Seng Yee Lau, senior executive vice president of Tencent, also argues that companies and governments must invest more in education, to reduce inequalities...

After spending years fighting to keep drones from flying over prisons, South Carolina corrections officials now plan to use the small unmanned aircraft to keep a remote eye on inmates. State Corrections Director Bryan Stirling showed reporters new drones on Thursday that can be used to...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson talked international relations and rude poetry with a hoax caller who pretended to be the Armenian Prime Minister in an embarrassing new gaffe for one of Britain's most prominent politicians.

Federal investigation finds emergency braking system was not enabled in SUV that hit Arizona pedestrian
A federal investigation into a self-driving Uber SUV that hit and killed a pedestrian in March has found that the vehicle’s emergency braking system was disabled.
The preliminary report, issued by the National Transportation Safety Board, said on Thursday that while the vehicle’s guidance system had spotted the woman about six seconds before hitting her, emergency braking manoeuvres were not...

The autonomous Uber SUV that struck and killed an Arizona pedestrian in March spotted the woman about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled, according to federal investigators....

PARIS (Reuters) - Europe should set global standards for tougher regulation of digital technology, finding a way between an excessively lax United States and an over-restrictive China, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

A U.S. cybersecurity company says the hacking group behind a worrying breed of destructive software is operating well beyond the Middle East, raising the possibility that it is laying the groundwork for dangerous cyberattacks around the world. Dragos Inc. said in a blog post...